Alex Kovalev's stock is rising, as the veteran winger has three goals and five points in his past three games. His old team, the Penguins, could have interest after losing Evgeni Malkin to a knee injury.

"It's the strangest thing," said Murray. "I've had, over the course of the year, a number of scenarios where I thought we could do the deal almost the next day. And then for money reasons, or some other reason, it never got done.

"I've talked to quite a number of teams, there's a fair amount of interest in making a trade on the part of some contending teams. But I wouldn't like to predict when it would come down."